Aeroplanes and Pirates
by LeonaWriter
Summary: Martin didn't exactly choose to be The Big Brother. It was simply how it happened. But he'd do the best he could, even if his little brothers were Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes.
1. Aeroplanes and Pirates

Martin smoothed down the hair of his littlest brother as the younger boy cried into his shoulder.

If he was honest, he would quite bluntly say that this was a rare thing, and one he really did wish didn't happen as often as it did.

Sherlock Holmes, Martin had long since decided, was not supposed to cry like this. Especially not while still dressed up in the pirate outfit Martin'd bought for him on his sixth birthday.

"There there," he said awkwardly. "It's going to be all right..." Because that's what people said.

"N-no, it's not," came the sniffled out response. "M-Mycroft said-"

"Well, I'm just going to have to have words with Mycroft then, aren't I?"

Although if he were honest with himself he wasn't looking forward to the prospect. For someone five years his junior, Mycroft could tie him up in knots far too easily. But after this, he'd have to.

"You can be whoever you want to be. Did I ever tell you what I wanted to be when I was just a bit younger than you are now...?"

"No..." Sherlock said, sniffing again.

His curiosity had perked him up, however, and Martin took that as a good sign. He leaned in closer and said, in a whisper, "Don't tell anyone else, but- I wanted to be an aeroplane."

Sherlock hiccoughed a laugh, and Martin smiled in embarrassed relief as the sobs turned into giggles.

"Really? But- but that's-!"

"Not actually possible?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, I didn't really think about it like that back then. It wasn't really that important. But you know what?"

Sherlock shook his head with a frown. He didn't often not know things, and was working on not knowing things even less.

"I didn't have a Mycroft, but someone still told me I wasn't able to be one. I wasn't allowed."

"That's _mean_! And- but you're-"

Martin wasn't about to mention that it had been their father who'd said that very thing. It wouldn't exactly help matters.

"Training to be a pilot."

Sherlock snickered. Martin started to laugh.

"Does that mean I can still grow up to be a pirate?"

Martin ruffled Sherlock's hair, and Sherlock shoved at him playfully as he tried to make the black curls go back into place.

"The way I see it," Martin said pointedly, "You can be if you want to be. I don't know _how_, but... If that's what you want to do, then don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Even Mycroft."

Sherlock smiled lazily, and, after deciding that his hair was just going to get ruffled again somehow anyway, leaned back into his brother's chest with a drowsy sigh. Martin draped an arm around him, proud of the fact that his little brother trusted him so much as to be himself around Martin, and not the quasi-grown up person he tried to be to the rest of the world.

…

AN: Done as a fill for a prompt on the kinkmeme. They suggested a Martin that'd be older than Sherlock, based on the ages given by ACD canon. I gave them a Martin that is the _eldest_ of the three Holmes brothers.

Their mother's maiden name is Crieff.


	2. Crashed Out

Crashed Out

...

Martin sighed as he spotted the one lonely light still on in the hall, and resigned himself to another round of trying to get the better of his younger brother and inevitably failing. It was like this almost every other night, now, this close to the exams, and although Martin couldn't say he didn't understand, that didn't mean that he had to like it one bit.

Mycroft was undeniably smart. No one could doubt that. Not even Mycroft himself. No, the problem wasn't whether or not Mycroft was _smart_, but the fact that he hated doing any of the work involved in showing it so that people could see. Which had, unfortunately for the Holmes household, resulted in several sleepless nights as the middle child was forced to cram in too much work into too short a period of time.

Martin creaked the door open just a little, hopefully not enough to garner too much attention straight away. No commotion - no scraping of the chair or throwing of pen or pencil or the entire stack of papers (as had happened once). Not entirely sure if this was a good sign or not, he went in further, trying to keep quiet, yet not _too_ much, in case Mycroft was suddenly startled. He didn't want to be accidentally (or not) hit in the face (again) for disturbing precious study time.

Except... Mycroft wasn't moving. For a moment Martin panicked, thinking that something unthinkable had gone wrong and his little brother had become unwell, before realising that the whole idea was silly, and anyway, he was breathing just fine. He was just asleep.

The ginger Holmes let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, and, after securing the coursework carefully into a cohesive pile and prising free the pen from his brother's hand, bundled the boy up in his arms and carried him to his room.

Mycroft wasn't as young as he used to be. Or as small. And Martin wasn't all that strong, either. It wasn't as easy to pull off as it once was as a result, but that didn't deter him from putting him into bed and pulling up the covers.

They'd always joked that one day Martin would fly (somehow or other, he would), and Mycroft would run the country. Well, maybe once he found himself there, he could have someone to tell him when not to stay up all night and end up wearing himself out like this. He wouldn't always have an older brother ready to take up the duty, after all.

...

AN: Inspired by a picture I saw on Tumblr with Mycroft sleeping on his desk and someone putting a coat or blanket around him, all I could see was Martin and Mycroft.


	3. We Interrupt This Broadcast

We Interrupt This Broadcast

...

The first two times Martin had failed his CPU, it had been, he would freely admit, because of ability. He had gotten questions wrong, or made mistakes, and promised himself to study even harder the next time, and he always did. And, because of that, he would always do better. It was only his luck that he would simply do better in different areas, messing up in places he'd been perfectly fine at before.

The third time he failed, it was because of stress. The examiners couldn't change the date, and he was pretty sure it wouldn't have changed anything if they had. Sherlock had, just the other week, let out a few choice words which had torn the family apart. His brother hadn't even realised what effect he'd have, and had probably thought that it was all obvious. Well, it hadn't been, and ever since then their parents had turned their home into their own private battleground. It was a miracle they were still married, but with all the noise and the tense atmosphere, and Mycroft shouting at Sherlock for not knowing when to keep his mouth shut, and Sherlock screaming back that he didn't understand how no one had noticed before, and wanting everyone to just leave him alone, Martin hadn't been able to sleep properly, or study for that matter, either. The test had been a disaster.

The fourth time went better, if by better he meant more to the standard of the first three. And when the letter arrived saying that he'd failed, and by how much, at least, he thought, at least the events of the previous year hadn't shaken him up so badly that all of the knowledge had fallen out of his head.

He often wished that he had Sherlock's ability to put facts together, or Mycroft's ability to just plain remember and utilise facts, but that would be knowing, and not, really, understanding. Besides, it would also feel like he was cheating somehow, and he wanted to get in on his own power, his and his alone.

The fifth went badly for an entirely different reason.

Sherlock was now seventeen, and living away from home to study closer to college. He didn't often take the time away to visit, either, which Martin wished he'd do more. He missed his baby brother who had somehow grown up when he wasn't looking. Mycroft was preparing to start his new job as a junior assistant in the government, and the idea of him running the country was a step further towards being the truth, rather than something to tease him with. Martin, of course, was still trying, and failing, to pass his tests to just get his license.

Their father was starting to get irritated. He could see the signs, just as he remembered the man's eyes going steely and hard that day when he'd been told, all those years ago, that he could never be an aeroplane. Sooner or later, he was going to stop humouring him, Martin knew. He _knew_. So all he had to do was put himself into it even more, and prove everyone wrong. That he _could_ do it.

It was the day of the test. He hadn't told anyone, because if he passed, then it would be a good thing to surprise them with – or at least, anyone other than Sherlock and Mycroft, and he was sure they'd be pleased anyway – and if he didn't, then it would be no different from usual.

Nerves made him jittery, yet again. He was sure that this would be the one, in a way that he hadn't felt since his first go. He tried to calm himself down. Tell himself that it was all going to be fine, that he knew it all, that nothing would go wrong. Nothing.

He was called in, along with the other students retaking their own exams, and sat at the table with his name on it. At the sign he wrote his name and turned the first page over.

He was doing well, considering. He knew the answers. He was also getting through the questions considerably quicker than the rest of those sitting the exam in the same room, possibly due to the fact that he'd taken it so many times before. All that had changed had been the few regulations that had been brought up-to-date. Scenarios with different names, or that were basically the same even though they used different numbers or such.

All in all, he was confident.

Then, the worst happened.

Someone came in through the door, found the closest invigilator, and had a quiet word in their ear. They looked into the room of students, found Martin's distinctive ginger head, and had a few words with the other staff member, who shrugged. With a sigh, the man went up to Martin, and asked him to follow him out of the room.

Martin would have protested, but there was nothing he could really do other than hope that it wasn't something that would really disrupt him for too long. That, and the fact that there was a worried sort of look in the man's eyes that he didn't like.

So he gathered up his things, and left. The moment they were outside, the first professor took him aside, and quietly told him that his brother had been taken in to hospital, and that since he was listed as next of kin, he had been the only one they'd been able to contact. They were really very sorry about the exam, but this was a medical emergency, after all...

To Martin, it felt like the world had fallen out from underneath him, and it took everything he had to stop his head from spinning. Sherlock? In hospital? But why? What for? He might sometimes forget to eat, but overall he knew how to look after himself.

He took a taxi to the hospital, only to find that Sherlock had been admitted due to a drug overdose. Cocaine.

Martin sat by Sherlock's bed at every opportunity until he started looking better, more like his old self, even if it did mean missing out on the rest of the CPU exam.

And, when he was well enough to be let out of the hospital (not when he was well enough to start insulting everyone, no, that was something completely different) Martin took to going daily over to Sherlock's rented apartment, just to make sure he was all right, to make sure he was safe, and eating, and not bored, and not alone. And remind him that Mycroft wasn't his only big brother.

The next year, Sherlock somehow managed to break a leg while chasing down some criminal. They caught the man he'd been after, but Martin, again, had been to see him at hospital. Right up until Sherlock woke up once more or less ordering Martin to go back to the flight school and finish sitting the damn test. Even then, he'd not been able to concentrate properly, images of Sherlock not surviving the next time filling his mind.

But Martin would unwaveringly choose Sherlock over the exam any time. An exam could be taken again, and would be, since he wasn't about to give up, but he only had two brothers. Only one Mycroft, and only one Sherlock.

Next time, he told himself, next time. He'd pass. He knew he would.

So long as Sherlock didn't do something stupid again, he would.

But if he _did_-

If he did, then he'd be there for him. Again. And always.

...

AN: I don't- I just had to do some sort of Cabinlock version of how Martin managed to fail so many damn times, while he's still a Holmes and fully capable of passing. And this is what happened.

Ages: In case you're wondering, when Sherlock was seventeen, Mycroft was twenty-four and Martin twenty-nine. Although seriously that's just as much for my benefit as anyone's...

Which means that when Sherlock moves in to 221b at the age of twenty one, Martin is flying with MJN.


End file.
